Euro elections | Virkkunen, Heinäluoma, Peltokangas – Many big names have not announced their election funding

Electorate have to vote for many of the best-known candidates in the EU elections without knowing the sources of their election money.

On Saturday evening, when early voting had already continued for four days, the election funding declarations of many likely vote grabbers were still missing from the pages of the election finance supervision.

The Prime Minister’s Party at this stage of the voting, only three candidates out of twenty had made a preliminary announcement about the coalition.

The announcement had not been made, for example, by the person appointed as commissioner Henna Virkkunenconkari meppi Sirpa PietikäinenMember of Parliament Pekka Toveri and did not jump directly from the presidential campaign to the EU campaign Mika Aaltola.

From the ranks of the largest opposition party, Sdp, the announcement was made by nine candidates for the position of MEP. However, the announcements were missing from three of the most well-known names: Eero from Heinäluomata, From Maria Guzenina and known on social media as therapist-Ville From Ville Merise.

Among the basic Finns, eleven out of twenty had reported. Among those who announced there were well-known names, such as a member of parliament campaigning with a budget of 52,000 euros Vilhelm Junnila and recorded a round zero euro for all notification lines Sebastian Tynkkynen.

Congressman Mauri from Peltokanka advance notification was missing. However, he told HS on Saturday that the announcement may still be on the website before the actual election day.

In the centre, the announcement had been made for the majority of the candidates, but only for three MPs From Katri Kulmun, From Petri Honkos and From Mika Lintila notification was still missing.

Summing up it can therefore be stated that a large part of the likely passers-by of the EU elections are not telling the voters before the voting decision, who or what has financed them.

All 20 candidates from the Greens and the Left Alliance had announced. Rkp’s balance was zero out of twenty candidates.

Election funding advance notification is voluntary. The opportunity is offered so that voters could investigate what kind of background forces have contributed to the campaign expenses.

Candidates are allowed to make announcements to a public website Until June 8. The actual election day is Sunday, June 9. Notifications serve their purpose best if they are not made at the very last minute.

Notifying the successful candidates and the two deputies of each of them is mandatory after the results of the elections are known. Those notifications must be submitted to the election finance supervision by August 12.

This is exactly what Rkp’s party secretary appeals to Fredrik Guseff when explaining why no Rkp candidate has made a prior announcement.

“When the elected representative and two deputy representatives make an announcement afterwards, it doesn’t matter how the funding is organized for those who don’t get elected,” says Guseff.

Doesn’t it matter in the situation that the voter would like to look at the financial sources of the candidates already when voting?

“If it’s important to the voter, it’s worth contacting the candidate directly,” advises Guseff.

According to Guseff, the advance notification policy has “no meaning in practice”.

“If you want, you can always get around it and state that there was income after the announcement was made.”

HS was aiming for On Saturday evening, the party secretaries of the coalition and Sdp will also be interviewed. Party secretary of the coalition Kristina Kokko said via text message that “the coalition encourages its candidates to make a voluntary advance notification in all elections”.

Candidates were sought in Heinäluoma, Virkku and Honko without being able to reach them. At Mauri Peltokanka’s place, he got upset.

Peltokangas is the one of the candidates for MP of the Basic Finns who has not announced his funding.

“I usually haven’t made an announcement in advance, because I don’t have any known funding,” he says.

“I will make an announcement when it is known what the real budget is,” he says.

Peltokangas says that he has not separately “wasted” money from companies or the third sector, but has made the account number visible on social media. He says that he uses the money mainly for radio advertising and only quite close to the actual election day.

Already done the announcements show a large spread between the budgets. There are also differences in the sources of the money.

The coalition Aura Salla for example, is running for the European Parliament with a budget of almost 145,000 euros. Among the big donors is Anssi Vanjoen Rantakesä, a consulting company managed by Risto Siilasmaan and By Kim Groop led by the investment company First Fellow Partners and election money association Pro Markkinatalous ry.

The Left Alliance Li Andersson’s the election budget, on the other hand, is 78,000 euros according to the advance notice. The two biggest donors are the Association of Public and Welfare Sectors JHL and Stiftelsen för det tvåspråkiga Finland, which supports Finnish bilingualism.

Many people also have significant sums of their own money.

For example, the current leader of the Greens Ville Niinistö use 25,000 euros of his own funds to seek re-election. So does the centrist who is seeking re-election Elsi Katainen uses 10,000 euros of his own money for the campaign and additionally takes out an election loan of 30,000 euros.